Three Knights | Opening TRAP MAGIC! 🪄♟️😲
#threeknights #quickwins #openingtraps
chess noob Quick Wins! is a series of short videos, to demonstrate very quick wins! As a beginner, you become aware of the Scholar's Mate and the Fool's Mate, but neither of these show up in real games. However, there are tricky quick checkmates and wins that occur, even at the intermediate level of chess.
Today's game is from one of my long-term subscribers @AndyDeco, with a fantastic demonstration of opening trickiness in a game of 5-min blitz, that gave him a very lovely 9-move checkmate with Black!
The game begins with a very standard Three Knights Opening (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Bc5). White immediately plays an accurate move with (4. Nxe5). This might look like a mistake, but it's completely fine for White as if Black captures back, White gets a lovely fork and control of the centre (4... Nxe5 5. d4).
However, Black was having none of that and plays the first of three very aggressive and tricky moves; they play an unexpected bishop sacrifice on f2 (4... Bxf2+)! Stockfish is confused, but in human terms, it has a nice logic. Firstly, it forces White's king onto the now semi-opened f-file, and Black trades material for initiative.
After (5. Kxf2 Nxe5), White attempts to capture the centre immediately with (6. d4) and win tempo by attacking Black's e5-knight, a logical move. Black, again is having none of that and makes use of the semi-open f-file with their second tricky move (6. Qf6+). White responds to this check by tucking their king onto g1 (7. g1), which is their best move. However, take note that White's king is rather exposed along the dark-square diagonal along the f2 square.
Black now plays their third very tricky move, having spent only 13 seconds in the game - (7... Ng4). This move is a great trap from a psychological perspective. There is an immediate threat of checkmate with Qf2#, so this provides the ostensible rationale for Black to have played that move. This gives the appearance that Black has hung their knight along the light square diagonal; White's queen defends the g4 square. However, Black's true goal was to coax White's queen off the d-file and no longer defend their d4-pawn!
White falls for the trap and captures the knight (8. Qxg4??), hanging a checkmate-in-two! With the queen off the d-file, White has now critically weakened that dark square diagonal; (8... Qxd4+)! White could delay checkmate for one turn with (9. Be3) but then (9. Qxe3#), GG!
